Charting a course for 2023
Peter shares his ambitions for 2023 in a new class of boat called a Waszp. Peter plans to compete at lots of high profile events in the UK, including the Waszp Nationals. As well as this, Peter plans to participate in the 18 class’ National Championships in Port St Mary, Isle of Man, his hometown, which will be his first competition on the island.
At the start of the last year, I started sailing the double handed 420 dinghy, this is a junior pathway class and I competed at all the UK events. We did very well finishing first U17 over the selection series for the international events. After a short break for exams, we went to the French nationals to practice before heading to Portugal to compete at the junior Europeans. We improved a lot before heading to Hungary for the worlds. At the worlds, we were sailing much better but we were unfortunate to miss gold fleet due to a couple of errors earlier in the week. We sailed very well for the rest of the week and finished towards the top of silver fleet.
Around October time, I decided that the 420 class was no longer for me, and I decided to change to the Waszp fleet. The Waszp is very different to the 420 because it is a single-handed hydro foiling boat. This is what I am going to compete in for 2023.
I competed at the Waszp Start of Seasons regatta. This was my first event in the new boat and I was thrown in at the deep end with tricky conditions. This new boat is very different to the one I used to sail so I am learning many new skills as I go.
The first day was so windy lots of boats didn’t go out but I really grew into the day with my best result being a fifth in the last race of the day. This left me lying in ninth overnight.
On day two, after some waiting around for the wind to settle, four races were held and I was starting to get the hang of my manoeuvres. Unfortunately, my boat broke and I was on the course side of the line with less than a minute to go and there was nothing I could do to avoid it. I finished the day in eighth which meant I just pipped my fellow junior competitor to finish first junior (U18) and finished eighth overall. I am very pleased with this result because it was the first time I had raced the Waszp.